A pulsar is a special kind of neutron star, which is the ultra-dense leftover core of a massive star.
Pulsars emit beams of radiation that sweep out in circles as the pulsar spins. When those beams flash over Earth, we see them as regular, repeating pulses of radio emission.
“Pulsars are spectacular objects themselves — the mass of the Sun crammed into a tiny ball the size of a city, spinning on its axis, in some cases faster than a kitchen blender, and sweeping beams of radio waves across the sky,” Anne Archibald, a professor of astronomy at Newcastle University in the U.K., told Live Science in an email.
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